Mrs. Proudie

“ We know what was the wrath of Juno when her beauty was despised. We know too what storms of passion even celestial minds can yield. As Juno may have looked at Paris on Mount Ida, so did Mrs. Proudie look on Ethelbert Stanhope when he pushed the leg of the sofa into her lace train.
"Oh, you idiot, Bertie!" said the signora, seeing what had been done, and what were to be the consequences. ”

“ I don't think Eleanor would get on at all well with Mrs. Proudie."
"Not the least necessity in life," replied the archdeacon, not without the reflexion that a ceremony which was necessary for his wife might not be at all binding on the widow of John Bold. "Not the slightest reason on earth why she should do so, if she doesn't like it. For myself, I don't think that any decent young woman should be subjected to the nuisance of being in the same room with that man." ”

“ Proudie by no means despised a countess, and as this countess lived in the county and within a sort of extensive visiting distance of Barchester, she was glad to have this opportunity of ingratiating herself.
"My dear Lady De Courcy, I am so delighted," said she, looking as little grim as it was in her nature to do. "I hardly expected to see you here. It is such a distance, and then you know, such a crowd."
"And such roads, Mrs. Proudie! I really wonder how the people ever get about. But I don't suppose they ever do." ”

“ But what can we poor women do, you know? When it is settled, my dear, I’ll send you a line at once.” And then Mrs. Harold Smith finished her course round the rooms, and regained her carriage within the twenty minutes.
“Beautiful profile, has she not?” said Miss Dunstable, somewhat later in the evening, to Mrs. Proudie. Of course, the profile spoken of belonged to Miss Grantly.
“Yes, it is beautiful, certainly,” said Mrs. Proudie. “The pity is that it means nothing.” ”

“ Proudie.
"Mr. Slope," began the bishop, in a solemn, serious voice, "it grieves me to have to find fault. It grieves me much to have to find fault with a clergyman; but especially so with a clergyman in your position."
"Why, what have I done amiss, my lord?" demanded Mr. Slope, boldly.
"What have you done amiss, Mr. Slope?" said Mrs. Proudie, standing erect before the culprit, and raising that terrible forefinger. "Do you dare to ask the bishop what you have done amiss? does not your conscience——"
"Mrs. Proudie, pray let it be understood, once for all, that I will have no words with you." ”

“ And the woman who thus so spoke was very different from that Miss Dunstable whom Mrs. Proudie courted, and the Duke of Omnium fêted, and Mrs. Harold Smith claimed as her bosom friend. If only she could find among such one special companion on whom her heart might rest, who would help her to bear the heavy burdens of her world! But where was she to find such a friend?—she with her keen wit, her untold money, and loud laughing voice. Everything about her was calculated to attract those whom she could not value, and to scare from her the sort of friend to whom she would fain have linked her lot. ”

“ Oriel. "I can understand that the bishop may have found a difficulty."
"The bishop, indeed! The bishop doesn't care two straws about it. It's Mrs. Proudie! She has put her finger on the poor man's neck because he has not put his neck beneath her feet; and now she thinks she can crush him,—as she would crush you or me, if it were in her power. That's about the long and the short of the bishop's solicitude."
"You are very hard on him," said Mr. Oriel.
"I know him;—and am not at all hard on him. She is hard upon him if you like. Tempest is fair. ”

“ Charlotte could hardly keep her countenance; but the doctor's brow grew still blacker than ever. Bertie was executing his chef d'œuvre in the delineation of Mrs. Proudie's nose and mouth.
"You are a heartless reprobate, sir; a heartless, thankless, good-for-nothing reprobate. I have done with you. You are my son—that I cannot help; but you shall have no more part or parcel in me as my child, nor I in you as your father."
"Oh, papa, papa! you must not, shall not say so," said Charlotte.
"I will say so, and do say so," said the father, rising from his chair. "And now leave the room, sir." ”

“ The palace with Mrs. Proudie was always a palace, and never a house. "No; no; ten thousand times, no. Are you not aware that he insulted you, and grossly, most grossly insulted me? I was never treated with such insolence by any clergyman before, since I first came to this palace;—never, never. And we know the man to be a thief;—we absolutely know it. Think, my lord, of the souls of his people!"
"Oh, dear; oh, dear; oh, dear," said the bishop. ”

“ Mrs. Proudie knew this, and therefore she did not do it; but she stationed herself as near to the door as she well could, that she might, if possible, get the advantage which the housemaid would have had, without descending to the housemaid's artifice. ”

“ As for her,—I will not allow any woman to tell me my duty. No;—by my Maker; not even your mother, who is the best of women. And as for her, with her little husband dangling at her apron-strings, as a call-whistle to be blown into when she pleases,—that she should dare to teach me my duty! No! The men in the jury-box may decide it how they will. If they can believe a plain story, let them! If not,—let them do as they please. I am ready to bear it all."
"Dear papa, you are tired. Will you not try to sleep?"
"Tell Mrs. Proudie what I say; and as for Arabin's money, I took it. ”

“ In fact, the bishop is henpecked.
The archdeacon's wife, in her happy home at Plumstead, knows how to assume the full privileges of her rank, and express her own mind in becoming tone and place. But Mrs Grantly's sway, if sway she has, is easy and beneficent. She never shames her husband; before the world she is a pattern of obedience; her voice is never loud, nor her looks sharp: doubtless she values power, and has not unsuccessfully striven to acquire it; but she knows what should be the limits of woman's rule.
Not so Mrs Proudie. ”

“ Why should he encounter such evil for a man whom he loved so slightly as Mr. Slope? Why should he give up his enjoyments and his ease, and such dignity as might be allowed to him, to fight a losing battle for a chaplain? The chaplain after all, if successful, would be as great a tyrant as his wife. Why fight at all? why contend? why be uneasy? From that moment he determined to fling Mr. Slope to the winds, and take the goods the gods provided.
"I am told," said Mrs. Proudie, speaking very slowly, "that Mr. Slope is looking to be the new dean." ”

“ Look through the world and see if this is not so always, except in those rare cases in which the human being lives and dies without joys and without sorrows, like a vegetable. A man shall be possessed of florid, youthful blooming health till, it matters not what age—thirty; forty; fifty—then comes some nipping frost, some period of agony, that robs the fibres of the body of their succulence, and the hale and hearty man is counted among the old.
He came down and breakfasted alone; Mrs. Proudie, being indisposed, took her coffee in her bedroom, and her daughters waited upon her there. ”

“ The Proudie element in wives and women is one of those unrecognised yet potent conditions of life which master us all, and yet are admitted and taken into calculation and account by none. It is in the nature of things that such an element should exist, and should be powerful in this peculiar and oblique way. ”

“ You all know how grieved I am to see a bishop in this diocese holding the latitudinarian ideas by which Dr. Proudie has made himself conspicuous. You all know how greatly I should distrust the opinion of such a man. But in this matter I hold him to be blameless. I believe Dr. Proudie has lived too long among gentlemen to be guilty, or to instigate another to be guilty, of so gross an outrage. ”

“ But Miss Proudleigh was mistress of ceremonies, and Susan herself was now subject to her aunt’s authority. That a stranger, an insolent stranger, should have dared to set the example of tears in the midst of a conversation, was more than Miss Proudleigh could stand. Extraneous sympathy must not be allowed to pass the bounds set by decorum and established practice. Happily Miss Proudleigh knew that she was equal to any emergency. ”

“ Madam," said Monsieur de Nemours, "what phantom of duty do you oppose to my happiness? What! Madam, shall a vain and groundless fancy hinder you from making a man happy, for whom you have an inclination? What, have I had some ground to hope I might pass my life with you? has my fate led me to love the most deserving lady in the world? have I observed in her all that can make a mistress adorable? Has she had no disliking to me? Have I found in her conduct everything which perhaps I could wish for in a wife? ”

“ Will she come here, ma’am?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Lady Fordyce; ‘but whether you will see much of her depends upon whether I consider her desirable company for you.’
‘She may be nice after all,’ hazarded Mary.
‘I trust that I am a fit judge of what a young lady should be,’ replied her mother. ‘As Lady Eliza Lamont spends most of her time in the stable, she is hardly the person to form my daughter-in-law successfully.’
‘She is Lady Eliza’s niece, ma’am, is she not?’
‘She is a relation—a poor relation, and no doubt gets some sort of salary for attending to her ladyship. ”

“ Mother Smit is a woman I don’t like at all. But de Scripture told us, judge not lest we be not judged, an’ perhaps Mother Smit don’t mean you at all when she talk about Quaco.”
On hearing this, Susan’s mother, a silent, elderly black woman with a belligerent past, screwed up her mouth by way of expressing her disapproval of her husband’s point of view. Mrs. Proudleigh was a firm believer in the unmitigated wickedness of her sex, but judged it best to say nothing just then. ”

“ When one parts from a mistress one would be just as glad, until one has begun to forget her, that she should not become the property of three or four potential protectors whom one has in one’s mind’s eye, of whom, that is to say, one is jealous: all those whom one does not so picture count for nothing. Now frequent demands for money from a cast-off mistress no more give one a complete idea of her life than charts shewing a high temperature would of her illness. ”

“ Now whether the mistress be a young blood's (such as Saint-Loup) or a young workman's (electricians, for instance, must now be included in our truest order of Chivalry) her lover has too much admiration and respect for her not to extend them also to what she herself respects and admires; and for him the scale of values is thereby reversed. Her sex alone makes her weak; she suffers from nervous troubles, inexplicable things which in a man, or even in another woman—a woman whose nephew or cousin he was—would bring a smile to the lips of this stalwart young man. ”

“ Now Catherine had no young man in view, so far as Miss Proudleigh was aware. And though many excellent arguments might be found to show that Susan and Jones were doing almost the right and proper thing in the circumstances existing, Miss Proudleigh felt that a stricter code of morality ought to be enforced in so far as Catherine and Eliza were concerned, at any rate until the time should come when moral theory might wisely be dispensed with on the tacit understanding of a marriage in perspective. ”

“ Let us say for the present, borrowing an example of a completely different order, that they occur very frequently in the most divergent situations that life has to offer. A husband has established his mistress in the town where he is quartered with his regiment. His wife, left by herself in Paris, and with an inkling of the truth, grows more and more miserable, and writes her husband, letters embittered by jealousy. Very well; the mistress is obliged to go up to Paris for the day. The husband cannot resist her entreaties that he will go with her, and applies for short leave, which is granted. ”

“ It is true, but they should not be reproached for it; they love even the show of courage, which is a glorious and holy thing. I am a woman, Proudhon is a great soldier of thought. I cannot therefore prevent myself from regarding him with esteem and sympathy; sentiments to which he will owe the moderation of my attack on his opinions concerning the rôle of woman in humanity. ”

“ We had also—a discreet feminine attention like the refreshments that are brought to us in the studio, between sittings, by a painter’s mistress—a courteous supplement to those which her husband paid us professionally, a visit from Mme. Cottard. She came to offer us her “waiting-woman”, or, if we preferred the services of a man, she would “scour the country” for one, and, best of all, on our declining, said that she did hope this was not just a “put-off” on our part, a word which in her world signifies a false pretext for not accepting an invitation. ”

“ I told him further, that if she had not resolution enough to marry him, or if she confessed she liked some other person better, he ought not to resent or be angry at it, but still continue his esteem and regard for her.
"I give you," said I, "the advice which I would take myself; for sincerity has such charms to me, that I believe if my mistress, or even my wife ingenuously confessed, she had a greater affection for another than for me, I might be troubled, but not exasperated; I would lay aside the character of a lover or a husband, to bestow my advice and my pity." ”